Why event venues need more focus on sales and marketing data.

What venues really want from their technology

Research results reveal concerns about how venues manage their business

Data, numbers, stats....have always divided opinion and perspective. The reason why we collate and analyse data is because we're searching for clarity, understanding and direction but often the numbers get people scratching their heads. They (the results) often provide confusion when they are intended to provide clarity.

Research results

And so it seems with the results behind the latest research Londonlaunch conducted into the state of venues' management systems.

The 'events' industry is worth somewhere in the region of £12billion annually depending on what numbers you believe/subscribe to (that's another data story but let's not go there in this article) so with a market this big and lucrative why are half the companies/venues surveyed dissatisfied with their management systems and more specifically the reporting? Is our industry being naive or is it in need of a clear leader, an authority, legislation or standards and benchmarking?

Hotels are all sorted

Hotels seem to have things sorted. When we asked hotels how happy THEY are with their data/systems and reporting AKA measurement, they were very confident and happy.And that's where we begin our conundrum - reporting.

If venues can't accurately report, how do they measure, manage and improve?Is that why a lot of venues seem to have little strategy and direction when it comes to marketing? Londonlaunch works with hundreds of venues and when we are asked to provide promotion and sales assistance for their venue we ask questions about the plan, the reason, the strategy and their competition and how they will measure the results. What's the benchmark? what does success look like? Of course, the answer is always "more enquiries" and "more business" but whilst that may be the end game, we all know that there's a lot more to it than simply getting it out there in front of the right audience. As we've already mentioned, it's a big, noisy and competitive world out there so it's important to understand who you are targeting, why that company should choose your venue for their next event and what the benefits are of your venue over your competitors.

Take a step back

There are 3 sets of data that can help venues:

1. Macro data. This is the big picture trend data. What are the market trends and how will they impact your client's buying habits now and in the future?Who's buying, what are they looking for and why?

2. Meso data.What are the trends in the business that is being conducted? What are the price points (yields)? What are the volumes and types of business being booked and how does your venue compare with the market and your competitors? Are your price points too low/too high? Are you targeting the right type of business/events and what do you need to do to attract the sort of business that will provide you with the highest yields and the best fit for your business?

3. Micro data.This is your data, from your internal systems. What are your KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and are they being compared/adjusted to suit the Macro and Meso sets of data? According to our research, only 50% of you are happy with this set of data. Scary considering how much opportunity is out there.

'What can be measured can be managed' is a popular and robust philosophy but when you can't measure it because you haven't got accurate, timely and consistent data coming from your own systems then it's going to make the rest of the 'management' task that much harder.

At a Breakfast Briefing we held recently with the partners of this research project NFS Technology Group, we touched on the subject of Digital Transformation. How can you use data to improve and grow your revenues?When 50% of the venues surveyed openly admitted they were unhappy with their reporting, it's clear that we have a long way to travel when it comes to how the hotels are currently operating. With so much competition and choice out there, it's clear that the survivors and thrivers are going to be the venues who take data seriously and more specifically, start to digitally transform their business. Yes, we're all in the creative events sector but to consistently improve performance, revenues and results we need to be better at collating, analysing and using data because more often than not - Data has a better idea.